


The Scattering of Cherry Blossoms

by DragonsPhoenix



Series: Lily Out of Water [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jossverse
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Healing, Rituals, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-25
Updated: 2008-10-25
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9139918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonsPhoenix/pseuds/DragonsPhoenix
Summary: Willow, coming out of denial, can't stand her life. Can Spike save her?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my Dad because we shared the ritual, that Willow’s healing is based on, at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
> 
> Summary: Things fall apart. Willow hits rock bottom. Things start to get better.
> 
> Warning: Scenes containing violence, self-mutilation, and gory descriptions.
> 
> Disclaimer: You know which characters belong to Joss Whedon. The characters in Willow's healing are based on a Bhutanese ritual I saw performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The poem Willow references is Yeats'”The Second Coming.” Song lyrics at the end are from “When You're Gone” off of Steve Strauss' Powderhouse Road; I strongly encourage you to run, not walk, and get yourself a copy of this CD.
> 
> Post of an old story. With rumors about LJ possibly going belly up, I'm deciding what to save.

“They keep the skeletons from straying.”

As I looked up, Drusilla gestured towards the symbols she’d carved onto her chairs. “They’re supposed to keep the skeletons from straying but they don’t work. I don’t understand why they don’t work.”

“Because they’re mere gobbledygook you dredged up from your madness,” I muttered under my breath. Unfortunately Drusilla’s enhanced hearing picked it up. Hissing, she slipped into vamp-face.

“Dru,” Spike shouted as he out of her room. Knowing Spike would handle Drusilla, I looked him over. It was worth the look. He'd dressed up for the evening: black leather pants and a silk shirt as blue as his baby blues.

“She said mean things about me,” Drusilla pouted.

“Now, now,” Spike replied. “You don’t want to spoil your deathday celebration, do you?” Drusilla’s deathday. No wonder Spike was dressed up. He had big plans to celebrate.

“I don’t see how it would.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that attacking me would piss off Angel but I knew Spike wouldn’t appreciate my invocation of Angel’s name.

“Come on, luv,” Spike said as he started dancing Drusilla around the room. “We can do a little dancing. You can pick out some pretty-pretties. I thought we’d take ‘em to the cemetery to play cat-and-mouse among the tombstones.”

“Do you think they’d play hide-and-seek with me?”

I snorted at her question. Spike gave me a glance but turned to Drusilla. “I’m sure they would,” Spike replied as he lifted her up to carry her away. Yes, it was a romantic gesture but it was also his quickest exit. It didn’t work though. Angel, dressed in his usual black on black on black, sauntered in when they were just a few feet from the door. I’ve never caught him at it but his entrances were too perfectly timed, for spoiling Spike’s plans, to have been anything but deliberate. They were always waging war over Drusilla, who took it as a compliment although I’ve never understood why; she was as much battlefield as their spoils of war.

Drusilla started squirming in Spike’s arms so he put her down. As she waltzed over to Angel, Spike rolled his eyes and put on a bored expression, as if putting on a mask. It was always like this. Drusilla, thoughtless bitch, would favor Angel, who would make some cutting remark while leaving Spike behind, and Spike would hit something, or someone. Honestly, I think Spike’s reactions were the only variable in their hurtful dance.

As she reached Angel, Drusilla caressed his cheek, and said, “We’re going dancing to celebrate my death day. Come with us, my Angel.” _Drusilla’s favoring Angel over Spike. Check._

Angel put on his you-are-the-cutest-little-demon-in-the-world smile and lightly touched the tip of Drusilla’s nose as he said, “Actually, I found a group of runaways living in an abandoned building and I thought you could have a hunt.”

Drusilla lit up. “Oh, goody. Can we go now?” Angel offered her his arm and then turned to Spike. “I’d invite you along, but threes a crowd,” Angel said, cupping Dru’s breast as she ground her hips against him. _Spike gets left behind. Check._ _And finally the big question, will Spike hit Angel, trash the place, or head out for a fight tonight?_ After they’d left, Spike just stood there, looking where they’d been. _No, no, no, no, no, this is different._ I stared at him until he grabbed his coat and started heading for the door.

“Spike,” I cried.

“I can’t,” he whispered, not even turning to look at me.

“Don’t leave me.”

Spike turned back to me and sighed. “Willow. I can’t do this again. Sure, it used to work. I didn’t always like how Angel treated Dru but he was her Sire, it was his right. But after he and Darla left, I was the one in control. I can’t be Angel’s Child again and he won’t give me the space to be anything else.”

I didn’t know what to say, ‘I love you’ seemed like such a frail and fragile response. Spike wouldn’t stay for me. He might have stayed for Drusilla, if she hadn’t always favored Angel. Spike gave me a long, hard look and then turned to leave again.

“Where will you go?” I asked, trying to delay his leaving.

“There’s a place I’ve been moving my stuff over to for the last few weeks. I didn’t expect I would leave but I guess I was planning to without knowing it.”

He stood there, looking at the ground while my heart tore itself in two. As I sank to my knees, he jerked away saying, “I can’t do this now,” and headed for the door.

“Take me with you,” I whispered.

He turned back with a dumbfounded look, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. I saw hope break across his face. “You sure?” he asked.

I loved them both. I couldn’t live without Spike. I couldn’t live without Angel. They couldn’t live together. Tears started rolling down my face while I thought about all the kindnesses Spike had shown me. Each year, when I mourned Xander, Spike was there, making up outrageous lies for Angel, to explain why I needed time alone. As a vampire, he could barely comprehend my human needs: quiet, bubble baths, kittens that Drusilla didn’t kill. He made sure I had them though, well, except for the kittens – we’d never been able to keep Drusilla away from them. Angel, secure in his mastery, had never worried about my needs. The scales tipped and I stepped into the future. “I’m sure.”

Holding hands, we walked out into the night.

\--

Down deep in the tunnels under the city, we arrived at Spike’s, at our new home. It was stone and cold and empty but I could fix that. Most of Spike’s clothes were there, in boxes and he’d propped up a futon, which had seen better days, by the wall. Spike sat down and gestured for me to join him.

“Don’t you need to eat?” I asked

“I ate already. Wanted tonight to be all for... I already ate.”

I sat down and rested my head against his. A long, uncomfortable, at least on my part, silence settled over us while I questioned my decision. Spike broke the silence by saying, “I’m sorry there are no flowers. If I’d realized we were going to end up here, I’d have had flowers and candles set up for you.” I felt empty. This was the first time I hadn’t had an altar up since... I’d lost Xander, lost my family and friends, and had just given up Angel. I put on a fake smile and said, “We can get anything we need, tomorrow. Tonight I just want to be here, with you.” Spike gave me a tight hug and we drifted back into silence.

I kept very busy over the next few days, distracting myself because I couldn’t stand to think about how my life had just changed. I’d left my magic books behind but couldn’t bring myself to go back for them because I was hoping that Spike would change his mind. That he could find a way to go back again. We picked up some furniture: a Mission style table for my altar and a couch, with wavelike patterns in blues and greens, to replace the futon.

Three days hadn’t passed before we had our first fight. We’d been kissing; Spike had just nibbled his way along my jaw to my neck when he shoved me away. “What the Hell?” I shouted as I picked myself off the floor.

“His mark, you’re wearing his mark.” I had no idea what he was raving about. “On your bloody neck.”

 _Mark on my neck?_ “You mean my tattoo? Spike, I’ve had this for years and you’re only objecting to it now?”

“You’re with me now,” he replied. I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t as all the anger I’d built up over the years, anger at Angelus, anger at Spike, roiled through me. “Unless you’d rather go back to Angel. Is that it? You planning to go back and be his bitch in heat?”

That did it. “It’s not my fault. None of this is my fault. Whatever is between you and Angel? Not my fault. Drusilla prefers Angel? Not my fault. This tattoo? Not my fault.”

“You accepted it. You let him mark you,” Spike shouted.

“You were there. You could have stopped it. You could have stopped him. Shit! You were helping him. He, he changed me and you let him.” Tears rolled down my face.

“I couldn’t have stopped him! Angel does what he wants. Nothing I could have said or done would have changed his mind.”

“You... you could have killed me. It might have been better than this.” Spike said nothing. “Answer me,” I screamed.

With no emotion either on his face or in his voice, Spike replied, “If you’d rather be dead than with me, that can be arranged.”

 _Spike doesn’t understand. All of those deaths are because of me, because Angel wanted a witch under his control. Spike doesn’t see that it’s wrong, of course he doesn’t. Vampire. He doesn’t care about the deaths, the deaths that brought him a shiny new toy to play with. That’s all I am to him. If Drusilla..._ “Why do you care? If Drusilla so much as wriggled a finger at you, you’d rush back to her so fast I’d be eating your dust.”

“Drusilla?” He didn’t deny it. “Yeah, and I suppose if your precious Xander were here, you’d stick with me. Oh wait, he’ll never be here ‘cause he’s dead. He’s dead except in your pretty little head where you keep him alive in there, enshrined in your memory.” He kicked over the flowers – the altar – my shrine to Xander.

“You dare?” I pulled power to me. I knew Spike could see it because he stood a little taller, daring me to strike him. I threw my rage at our bed.

Glancing at the destruction, Spike said, “Well, that’s kindling.” He stared at me for a moment. “Xander’s dead, luv. You have to choose, will it be me or Angel?”

“I chose you. I left with you.”

“If he called us back, if I went back, you’d go. Not for me, but for him.” I couldn’t deny it. I would have gone back, if Spike would go with me. When I didn’t reply, Spike continued, “Who do you love? Me or him?”

“Both of you,” tore out of my soul.

Spike’s gaze darkened as he whispered in a voice that carried the loss of all he’d ever held dear, “You can’t be with me and wear his mark.”

The meaning of his words hit me and I staggered back. I wanted to cry, wail, and gnash my teeth but it wouldn’t have done any good. I had to choose. I, I thought I had chosen. I looked at Spike through the tears in my eyes. I couldn’t leave him. I thought of Angel, my soul and body yearned to be with him but he’d never been with me, not really.

I closed my eyes and called up my magic. Simple. Just like that and it was done.

Lifting my hair for him, I revealed the white of my neck. Unmarked. _This absence is just as strong a mark as the tattoo was. I belong to Spike now._

\---

It had been a week since Spike and I had fought. A week of silences, only on my part at first but Spike became afraid to confront me. I’d never seen Spike afraid of anything before but I couldn’t help him, I couldn’t even help myself. It was getting worse; I was getting worse. My future seemed dark, dismal, and dreary. I loved Spike but it wasn’t enough and I didn’t know what would be. I felt trapped. I wanted to run away but I had nowhere to run to and running from wouldn’t have solved anything. I’d taken to walking by myself, hoping I could find a solution, a way to fix my life.

“Willow.”

My heart leapt at his voice. “Angel?” I asked as I turned towards him.  _ Angel. Take me back. Make it all better _ . I wanted to beg him to take me back, but I couldn’t do that to Spike. I wanted to beg him to fix my life, but he couldn’t. Whatever was wrong, Angel didn’t have the solution. I wanted to beg for his love but I wouldn’t. He’d never given it to me before. 

I’d braided my hair back behind me, which must have been how he’d seen that I’d removed his mark. He shouted something as he hit me and I flew into the wall. I could have used a spell to defend myself, it’s why he’d taught me magic in the first place but I could barely believe it. Angel had never hurt me before, not really. I think he would have killed me but Spike jumped down on him from the fire escape. “Willow!” Spike shouted from a furious fistfight, “Get out of here.” I didn’t move and he added, “NOW!” I used my magic to shove them to opposite sides of the alley.

“Well, well,” Spike smirked at Angel, “Having a little trouble are we?”

_ Angel almost killed me _ . I’d known for years that Angel had never loved me but I’d never expected that he could bring himself to kill me. I’d never realized how easy it would be for him. “Just go,” I told him. I watched him walk out of my life.

I felt like the ground had given way beneath me. I turned to Spike.  _ Could he betray me too? _ I had to know. “Spike, how did you just happen to be here?”

“I wanted to keep you safe,” he lied.

“Safe?” I growled.

“Pet, Angel almost killed...”

“I know what Angelus almost did,” I interrupted.

“I was afraid you’d leave me,” he whispered, the truth this time; I couldn’t always tell but that night I could. I didn’t say anything, just stood there, watching him. My world was falling apart and he thought I’d leave him? “I know I’m not enough. I try but it’s been too long: I don’t remember how to be human.” Afraid that Spike’s honesty would tear us apart, I could barely breathe. “I know that’s what you need, human companionship. I know you need, that you want...” He turned his head away.

Finally I was able to speak but all I could say was, “Spike?”

He looked back at me and the truth in his eyes was like a physical blow. “I can’t be Xander for you.”

Through my tears I told him, “I don’t want you to be Xander and I don’t want you to be human. I love you, Spike.”

“But, you’ve been upset. You’ve been distant. Even when you’re with me, you’re not with me,” he replied.

“It’s not you, Spike. It’s me,” I said.

“What’s you, luv?”

“I don’t know how to explain. If I can’t even explain it to myself, how can I explain it to you?” I asked.

“Let one word follow the other,” he replied. _Let one word follow the other? How can I, when there are no words?_ And then I found the words, and I spoke them, although I knew they wouldn’t help him understand:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

\---

“Yesterday upon the stair,” I heard a voice behind me as I walked out of the sewers. Two people had shared that with me and they were both dead.

“I saw a man who wasn’t there,” I replied.

“He wasn’t there again today,” came the response. _Xander_? It sounded like Xander. I couldn’t bring myself to finish it; if it really were Xander, he’d know the correct response. 

Finally I heard, “I think he’s with the CIA.”

“Xander?” I cried as I spun around.

He wasn’t there.

Pet shop: big brown eyes looked back as they scratched at the window. Puppy dog eyes, that’s the phrase Drusilla had used. “They’re torturing me, you know, here in Hell.” Xander’s voice came from behind me. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t even look into the glass to see his reflection.  _ Bright, sunny day so he can’t be a vampire _ . It had never occurred to me before that they might have turned him. “Think you can get me out of this Will? ‘Cause being tortured for all eternity, not so fun.” I  _ know this isn’t Xander; it’s me; it’s all in my head _ . “Please Will. I can’t get out on my own.”  _ This isn’t real. I hope _ .

I looked up to see if Xander was reflected in the glass. Bits and pieces of Xander as if I were seeing him through a shattered mirror, all covered in wounds, and blood, and gore. “Xander!” I shouted as I turned to him. A woman, walking her dogs, looked at me like I was crazy and walked faster down the street.

Everywhere I went, I saw Xander and each time it was worse. Screams. Torment. Agony. As I blindly rushed back home, through the sewers, Xander’s screams echoed in those dark, cavernous tunnels. Gasping, I stumbled and fell. Screams echoed, echoed, echoed around me, filling my mind. The screams were waterweeds, dragging me under to the briny bottom. I choked on them. Screams filled me to the very core of my being. I couldn’t contain them. I couldn’t release them. I couldn’t cry. Or scream. I reached for my magic and sharp cuts appeared up and down my arms. Not enough. I reached deeper. Tears welled in my eyes, enough that I could scream but not enough, not nearly enough, to stop Xander’s screams.  _ I can reach deeper. One more inch. One more inch and all the screams stop. Forever. _ I heard Spike shouting, distant, almost drowned out by Xander’s screams, “Willow, don’t leave me alone.”  _ Just one more inch _ . I reached deeper. My head exploded in pain.

Each time I opened my eyes, I was in a different place but always moving. Clackety clack of wheels, private compartment of a train. Sea scent, rocking motion, a ship. Rickety old truck that felt like it was about to fall apart. Each time, Spike was there with pills and water, sometimes food.

I awoke to the dance. A figure, certainly not human, but not a demon, nor, quite, a god, danced before me. I was vaguely aware there was some ground that it, he, danced upon but all I could see was the dancer. He had the head of a stag but the body of a man. Rectangular pieces of cloth hung between his horns, prayer flags, my memory supplied. An associate of my mother’s, who had been to Tibet, had brought one home and showed it to me. These fluttered without wind. The dancer wore a dark green top with sleeves hugged his lower arms but billowed out above. His pants were pale yellow, puffed out, away from his body, and shined like the reflected light of the moon.

He danced. He glided like water down a smooth channel. He danced. He leapt impossibly high into the air and he bent backwards to touch his horns to the ground. He danced. He twirled; he kicked. He danced. I felt calm, still, at peace, as if I didn’t even exist. All that existed was the dancer and the dance until he leapt into the air and did not come back down.

Over time, I don’t know how long, I started coming back to myself. I was in a cave but the ground was covered in fine, pale sand. I was seated on the ground, leaning against someone for support. I knew without looking that it was Spike. The sand glowed, providing the only light, so all the shadows look eerie and wrong. My mind was clear but my arms were covered with scabs like whip marks. I’d almost killed myself. Spike had stopped me and apparently had brought me to this place. “Where are we?” I whispered still half lost in awe of the dance.

“House of the Catmaster,” he replied. I turned to look at him and he chuckled. “I know. It’s not a house and there are no cats. It’s what this place is called. I don’t know why. The true name is not secret so much as sacred. Tread lightly over sacred things, Dru told me that. One of the truest things she ever said.”

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“To keep you from killing yourself,” he replied.

I thought about what I’d been going through. I felt calmer now but “I don’t think it worked.”

“That wasn’t it,” Spike replied. “That was more like prep, to get us ready to enter the sacred space. The healing comes at a price, some type of fight, my source was vague but don’t worry. I’ll wear your favor into battle.”

The air grew cold around us. A gong chimed from the farthest edge of the circle. A figure emerged from nothingness: I couldn’t look at it directly, my eyes slid over it, but I got an impression of enormous size and a deep, dark redness. From behind it, two columns of figures reverently walked onto the sand, my dancer among them, most sat, forging a path between the looming presence and us. Spike and I stood as two approached us: one pale of face, paler than a vampire even, who moved with a flowing grace while the other, whose face was as black as the darkest night, stomped and growled as if enraged. Even with all his raging, the dark figure was not nearly as terrifying as the pale presence. The dark figure held out his hand to lead me into the space. When Spike moved to follow, the pale figure stopped him, saying, “Only the Candidate may enter.”

“But I’m her champion,” Spike replied. “I’m going to fight for her, defeat whatever demon beast you’ve conjured up.”

“The Candidate must fight herself.”

“The Candidate must fight? You want Willow to fight? Look at her, she’s half dead. That’s not a fair fight,” Spike shouted.

“The Candidate must fight herself.”

Spike tried to run past the pale figure but bounced back as if at the door of a house he hadn’t been invited into. Knowing Spike, he was shouting obscenities but I could no longer hear him as the two figures led me forward to the edge of the now seated figures. I bowed, awed by the presences, and more than slightly afraid. No words passed between us but the red presence and I reached an understanding, I had its permission, for what I still wasn’t sure. The pale and dark presences led me to an opening in the rocks, one that hadn’t been there before. I crouched down and crawled through it and, after a short distance, emerged into another cavern.

Primal place. Ancient. Torch lit darkness, fed by flames.

Before me stood a doorway, I stepped through into darkness: darkness deeper than dire despair, darkness crueler than killing kindness, darkness as silent as death. I turned around, reached out for the door, and took a step. I stepped again, and again. This place seemed to have no end and I called upon my magic to dispel the darkness. Nothing. _My magic is gone? I use my magic to fight, to protect. Angel. Spike. Myself. Here... there’s nothing. Here there is nothing to fight. Here there is nothing to rail against. Here there is only myself._ I felt as if the floor had given way, as if I were falling, as if I would fall forever.

Vicious voices accosted me. Glimmering gestures filled out to form faint figures. They were people, people who had been killed casually and cruelly. By Drusilla, by Angel, by Spike. By me. They came at me from all sides. Angrily accusing. Justifiably judging. Attacking. Panicked, I tried to bat them away but my hands went through them. I curled up into a ball. From behind closed eyes, I could still see them.

A wailing woman, so twisted and torn that she could scarcely sit, whose sliced skin hung down from her cheek exposing muscle, blood, and bone. Her empty eye socket was dark against her glowing skin. The eye had been torn out and eaten by... Angel had afflicted agony on this woman for months. Drusilla had danced to her harrowing howls and shrill, shrieking screams. I had lengthened her life, kept her alive and enduring excruciating excesses for Angel’s revenge and amusement.

Glimpsing Giles, I gasped. Aghast. Ashamed. He was blessedly silent except for his eloquent eyes, full of pity.

Paul held his hand under mine; with a ghostly gesture both our hands rose. A careful kiss to my hand, that he did but didn’t hold, was unfelt but calming all the same. “Will the Council still take me in, now that I’ve killed you?” I asked. “Willow, if you go to the Council, choose whom you approach with care,” he replied before fading away.

Buffy, my best friend before I’d betrayed her. “Why Willow? I was there to save you. He told me, just before he killed me, that you were his.” Salty tears slid down my face. _Buffy, beat me. Punish me. Please. It’s too much. Hit me until I don’t hurt anymore._

Next to grab my attention, was a boy, barely eight. His blood soaked hair had been blonde but the color could scarcely be seen under the matted gore. “He cut me. He cut me and cut me and cut me and you didn’t stop him.” Spike had called it Death by a Thousand Cuts as he’d sliced into the boy again and again. He’d done it to win Drusilla back from Angel and it had worked but only for a few nights. The boy started screaming, begging for mercy. It was what I had heard that night. Unable to bear the boy’s screams, unable to bear my denial, unable to bear what I had become, I screamed in response. Still they came at me, unending, relentless. My screams became sobs became incoherent wailing.

It stopped.

Silence. One lone light left. I opened my eyes, afraid to see, “Xander?”

Xander stood above me. His neck was torn, marked by fierce fangs. “They killed me. You could have stopped them. You didn’t.”

“Xander. I’m so sorry. Please. Please forgive me.”

“Not in the cards, Willow. Forgiveness is not so important on this side of the grave. There are only two ways to go from here. You’ll have to find your forgiveness someplace else.”

“But Xander, what should I do?” I asked.

“There’s only one way out of here alive, Will,” he said as he vanished from view. Pitch dark again. Despair so deep it had no beginning, no end, and no way to get around it.

“No! Xander, don’t go. Please tell me you’re someplace nice,” I sobbed. “I miss you so much.”

With a flickering flash, Xander glowed back into view a smile on his lips as he lobbed a light at me. “Here, this will help.” I caught it and he vanished again. It was a seed, slightly sprouting and gently glowing. It gave off its own light. Looking at it, I understood Xander’s words, a choice: death or life. I could die here. It would be easier, so much easier. Or I could go forward. Working my way back to wholeness. Climbing my way back... not to innocence. I’d seen too much, allowed too much, done too much to be truly innocent again. But moving into ... oh, there was no single word for it. Clarity. Responsibility. Trustworthiness. Honor.

I was terrified. I hated who I’d become but it was familiar. I was petrified by my choice, the cruel crossroads forcing me to step into the unknown. Fearing the future, I froze, unable to make a choice. I felt as if space had stretched out around me, as if the universe itself was waiting for my decision and I couldn’t choose. _If I do this... No, I can never make up for what I’ve done. People are dead, lives torn apart, because of me. I can never make it up to any of them. All I can do is try to make it better, try to heal_ , I looked down at the seed, _try to grow_.

I held the seed to my mouth. Inhaled. The seed sank to my center, to my stomach and spread out shoots causing new life to leap forth, fecund and flowering. Currents of energy flowed through my body until they hit pockets of darkness, stagnant darkness that layered itself around rocks of bitterness. I probed the darkness to discover unacknowledged pain. Xander: dead and unmourned. Mourned, yes, but not properly mourned because I couldn’t acknowledge that pain before the vampires, before Angelus. My friends: dead. The pain, torture, and death I’d endured, witnessed, and perpetrated. Through force of will, I tried to drive out the pain; my muscles tensed with the effort, and then cramped, until I became a ball of agony. Panting from the effort, I thought, _What am I missing? Why can’t I fix this?_ Deep down, from the bottom of my soul, rose the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to look at. In terror, I tried to turn, to hide, to run, but there was no escape. _Angel doesn’t care for you._ It kept ringing in my ears: my voice, but not my voice. _He wants your power, but not you, never just you._ My mind screamed in denial. _Not this. My Angel. My Beloved._ Still, the voice was relentless. _You knew in the library, when you looked at that book. He wanted the power, the power of a witch, your power. He kidnapped you. Why? He put you in a cage, kept you prisoner, and attacked you when you left. Is that love?_ Sobs racked my body as I cried for the final, unmourned victim. I cried for myself.

Time became meaningless. I never knew how long I cried. As my tears wore themselves out, I collapsed to the ground, exhausted, letting go, too drained to hold onto my anger and my anguish. Tendrils, shooting out from the seed, burrowed into my darkness and unbound the pain. The hardness dissipated, integrating with my whole, transmuting the denial and the pain into growth. New life bloomed forth and cleared away what was stuck, what had been warped. I burst into light.

\---

I awoke in Spike’s arms. We were alone in the cave and he was sitting on the sand, crooning nonsense words over me. I leaned my head against his shoulder. I could have sat, encircled by his arms forever but instead did what I had to do. “Spike, let me up,” I said. When we were both standing, I turned away and then back to face him again. The smile had left his face. “Spike,” I started but he interrupted me.

“Willow, it’s done, you’re healed. We can be together. It will be better now. It will be good. I can show you Europe, or China,” he added quickly, seeing that I was trying to speak. “Last time I was there was the Boxer Rebellion, might have changed a bit since then.”

I put a finger over his lips. Fear spoke from his eyes. My eyes had been opened and I saw the world anew. Yes, Spike was truthful, to a fault sometimes, brave, caring, and gentle... for those he cared about. He was also a casual killer. He took pleasure in pain and death and gore: I remembered the Death by a Thousand Cuts as well as countless other deaths. _If I stay with him, he’ll drag me back down_.

“Spike, I can’t stay with you.”

“You can,” he replied. He looked at me. For a moment that lasted an eternity, he looked at me. “You’d better go then,” was all he said as he stepped around me into the center of the circle. I reached out to him, his name almost on my lips, but there was nothing I could say. As I walked away I heard him shouting to the gods of that place. We couldn’t see them but I’m sure they heard. “What did you do to her, you bastards? Fix it or I swear I’ll tear this place apart, stone by bloody stone.”

\---

In my dreams I reach to kiss you

But my love finds only silence

I’ll remember and I’ll miss you

In the morning

Sadly singing

In the garden

When you’re gone.

**Author's Note:**

> After the confrontation with Angel, Willow quotes “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats to Spike in an attempt to explain what's wrong with her.
> 
> Willow’s transformation is loosely based on the scene in the House of the Catmaster from Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia. If you have not read that book, I urge you to run, not walk, and get a copy.
> 
> The quote at the end is from the song “When You’re Gone” off of Steve Strauss’ album Powderhouse Road.


End file.
